


the world is in my hands

by kimaracretak



Series: gracie shepard: if the sun can radiate then so can i [2]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: the canon war hero origin blurb is trash and i reject it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-03
Updated: 2016-08-03
Packaged: 2018-07-29 04:05:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7669441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kimaracretak/pseuds/kimaracretak
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(she's winterhearted, so you say / but you don't see): The truth is, the Alliance made it personal not by capturing her but by forcing her to defend Elysium.</p><p>After the Skyllian Blitz, they tell Gracie Shepard that joining the Alliance is her choice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the world is in my hands

**Author's Note:**

> title from darling violetta, 'awesome', summary quote from xandria, 'dancer'
> 
> "joined the alliance at eighteen to be free of a life of petty crime" lmao nope

By the time they dig Gracie Shepard out of the rubble of Elysium’s front lines, the last of the pirates have been gone for more than fifty hours. Her mouth is still full of blood, and where it’s dried across her body it’s still a sickeningly bright red just shy of the colour of her tangled hair.

 _Shotgun to the face,_ she leers at anyone who will listen, mouth twisted in something that would maybe resemble a victory smile on someone who looked slightly more human. Those who believe her note that her laugh is just a little too manic. Those who don’t, she flashes her biotics at, blue and violent with it, and she isn’t even sure she’s Lifted them until they crash back to the ground as the exhaustion starts to catch up with her.

The Alliance has a list of her crimes longer than she is tall (it’s not hard) that stretch back to her days in the Reds, and she’s proud of it. Prouder still at how many they’ve missed.

 _You really should be in prison_ , they tell her. _Well, you should really be_ dead _, considering how long you held out with the ground forces._

 _What ground forces,_ she thinks, _those were civilians. kids, half of them. Where the fuck were anything resembling ground forces_. But they haven’t healed her mouth yet, so she just spits at them. (Later, it’s _fuck you fuck you_ in as many languages as she knows, with enough inventive twists to make the youngest of her guards blush. Kids. She was never a kid, not really, but she knows enough to spot them.)

They can’t, actually, make her disappear. Everyone knows her face, if not her name, even those who have no idea that in background if nothing else she shares more with the pirates she killed than the people she protected. But she’s the face of the holdout against the Skyllian Blitz, and the grateful colonists and curious journos keep the Alliance too busy dealing with the headache of the vids of her being pulled from the rubble saturating every conceivable channel to actually do anything with her.

A week later, when at least her body is mostly healed, they make her an offer: Alliance or prison. Give up crime for good, or let the public believe the hero of Elysium succumbed to her injuries.

She’ll say later that she thought very seriously about the prison option, because any pirate worth _anything_ had to make it known that they would die before being captured.

The truth is, she doesn’t think the voices in her head are ever going to stop.

The truth is, you protect your gang, _especially_ if you’re a leader, you have a responsibility to them.

The truth is, the Alliance made it personal not by capturing her but by forcing her to defend Elysium.

 _I fucking knew it_ , she grins, and the choice was easy. _I knew you needed me._

_Let me show you how it’s done._


End file.
